NYT's top 41 world destinations -- two in our backyard

Updated 10:00 pm, Friday, January 14, 2011

In a New York Times' list of "The 41 Places to Go in 2011," the San Juan Islands of Washington rank No. 2 on the list, nestled between Santiago, Chile, and Koh Samui, Thailand.

Not far down the list is our Olympic National Park is flanked by Guimaraes, Portugal, and Dresden in Germany. The Top-41 was published last Sunday.

Two of the NYT's Top-41 can be reached in a morning from Seattle. A third Top-41 destination on the list, the British Columbia resort of Whistler, is less than a day away in the Great White North.

Normally, this space growls when Seattle goes ga-ga at some favorable write-up in a national publication, and supports incarceration of any critic who sites an East Coast or European rave for (name of project) as something that will "put Seattle on the map."

Joel Connelly has been a staff columnist for more than 30 years. He comments regularly on politics and public policy.

An exception should be made during the raw, dark, wet days of a Northwest winter: It's good to be reminded by others of the beauty in our backyard. On a cold, clear New Year's Day, I stood slack-jawed with awe at a Lummi Island cove, watching alpenglow on Mt. Baker and peaks of the Coast Range in British Columbia.

As well, the NYT' knows how to tip its hat to defenders of our best places. The Top-41 list singles out local citizen land preservation groups that help save places.

Of course, East Coast tastes do take top billing in Sara Dickerman's write up on the San Juans:

"The big draw for the San Juan Islands this year just might be the dining scene. Blaine Wetzel, a former chef at the wildly acclaimed Copenhagen restaurant Noma, took the reins at Willows Inn on Lummi Island (due to reopen on Feb. 10) while Lisa Nakamura, who has trained with big-name chefs like Thomas Keller, opened Allium on Orcas Island."

A local can quibble. There's been years of debate over whether Lummi Island properly belongs in the San Juans. To her credit, Dickerman goes on to rhapsodize about "broody forests and scrappy escarpments that overlook fjordlike inlets."

In celebrating the Olympics, however, Bonnie Tsui zeroes in on a longstanding pleasure of Northwesterners -- heading out to the Pacific OCean for winter storm-watching.

Of course, both of our close destinations have long been "discovered." Theodore Roosevelt signed the guest book at Roche Harbor on San Juan Island. Ex-Vice President Al Gore has vacationed in the San Juans.

Lake Quinault Lodge, featured in Top-41, once hosted President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The vast expanse of old-growth rainforest, viewed from a dining room window, helped persuade FDR to create the Olympic National Park.

Whistler gets an NYT nod for its Nordic skiing and the "tremendous structural legacy" left by the 2010 Olympic Games: There's lots more snow in this La Nina winter than in the somewhat balmy February that last year hosted the world's best skiers.

The NYT is wise enough to celebrate citizens as well as places. Writing about Whidbey Island a few years back, the Times' Timothy Egan focused on two places -- Ebey's Landing National Historical Preserve and Classic U forest in South Whidbey State Park -- protected by public campaigns.

With the San Juans, Dickerman writes: "Thanks to an active land preservation effort by organizations like the San Juan County Land Bank, each year new areas are protected from logging or unruly development, and in turn provide fresh terrain for the public to explore."

It's nice to get places like Mitchell Hill -- recently made part of San Juan Island National Historic Park -- and Lopez Hill on Lopez Island get national exposure.

And Puget Sound residents can be quietly satisfied, looking out at the rain, to read Top-41 know that we are a privileged people surrounded by envy.